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Audio File: Back in the studio

My favorite local band is recording again, and horn speakers are explained

By Duncan Taylor

Colorado Daily Columnist

Posted:
01/25/2018 03:15:26 PM MST

Taylor

There's a pretty righteous beer store a couple blocks from my house here in Boulder, and as many of my neighbors are of the mid-30s bearded sort that I am, the proprietor keeps it stocked with a wide variety of dank, local brews.

There's enough hops in that building to make your mouth (or eyes) water. Lots of pale ales and 9 percent mind-benders on the shelves.

So that feeling when I see a new small batch experimental brew from my favorite brewery show up — Odd 13 — is just like Christmas morning.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is exactly how I feel right now knowing that Boulder's Jaden Carlson Band is back in the studio, preparing a new album.

I've written about Jaden and her band a few times over the years because she's kind of a BFD on the local scene. Her band always has one of the absolute tightest rhythm sections in the area, and she's got this handle on the guitar that belies anything about her onstage appearance. As in, she appears to be a 16-year-old girl with pink hair and Nordic wraparound sunglasses. But she shreds the six string (and now the keyboard as well) with a maturity and touch reminiscent of the living guitar greats like Scofield or Bonamassa.

Her solos exhibit the kind of phrasing and dynamics of a skilled vocalist, which is high-level stuff. But its her melodic choices that are truly jaw dropping.

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Like many — er, well, most — albums created in the area in recent years, Jaden's band has launched a crowdfunding campaign to help pay the rest of the production bills and get the disc printed.

And like all funding campaigns nowadays, the band's quirky personalities come out in the "perks" area. I think I might have to call dibs on taking keyboardist Chris Beck's dog Axel out on a hike ... with band in tow of course.

Last week, I found an example of planar speaker technology in real life, exhibited by the noise the zipper on my puffy jacket makes as I pull it up.

Horn speakers for home listening may be popular only in Europe or Asia these days, but they used to be much more prevalent in American homes.

A real-world example of how horns work can easily be found. Just try to shout something to a friend across a football field without bringing your hands up to cup the sides of your mouth. You can't do it.

So how does it work? Well, nothing is actually amplified when you do that. The sound doesn't bounce back and forth between your hands and somehow get louder.

What is happening is that the sound waves you're making are being clarified, their wave fronts become more spherical and the sound is coupled to the air better. And thus, it arrives at your friend's eardrum in better shape for her to understand what you're saying.

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